The letter ghayn (غ) is sometimes used to represent the voiced velar plosive/ɡ/ in loan words and names in Arabic and is then often pronounced /ɡ/, not /ɣ/, such as the word for Bulgaria (بلغاريا). Other letters, such as ج‎, ق‎, ك‎ (also گ, ݣ‎, ݢ‎, ڨ‎, instead of the original Arabic letters), can be used to transcribe /ɡ/ in loan words and names, depending on whether the local variety of Arabic in the country has the phoneme /ɡ/, which letter represents it if it does, and on whether it is customary in the country to use that letter to transcribe /ɡ/. For instance, in Egypt, where ج is pronounced as [ɡ] in all situations, even when speaking Modern Standard Arabic (except in certain contexts, such as reciting the Qur'an), ج is used to transcribe foreign [ɡ] in virtually all contexts. In many cases غ is pronounced in loan words as expected—/ɣ/, not /ɡ/—even though the original language had /ɡ/.

When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ע׳.

In English, the letter غ in Arabic names is usually transliterated as ‹gh›, ‹ġ›, or simply ‹g›, e.g. بغدادBaghdād 'Baghdad', or غزةGhazzah 'Gaza', the latter of which does not render the sound [ɣ]~[ʁ] accurately. The closest equivalent sound known to most English speakers is the ParisianFrench "r" [ʁ].

Ghayn is written is several ways depending in its position in the word: